Russian convicted of setting fire to Belarusian general's car recounts how Kubrakov tortured him
26-year-old Anton Lysov, a native of Cheboksary, took an order on the darknet five years ago to set fire to a car in Minsk. The target turned out to be a high-ranking security official of Lukashenka's regime. Lysov was detained. He told his story to "Mediazona".
Anton Lysov in 2021 (left), photo from Instagram, and March 3, 2026, photo: Yegor Kirillov / Mediazona
Order for a car
26-year-old Anton Lysov from Cheboksary barely remembers his father — he left the family when the boy was seven. When he turned 16, his mother passed away. His only relatives left were a younger sister and an elderly grandmother.
Lysov lived in his grandmother's apartment on the outskirts of the city. He was chronically short of money and had no stable job. He was fond of motorcycles, weightlifting, and weapons. While it was a «relatively cheap pleasure», he bought a Makarov pistol «to sleep more peacefully» — but, he says, he never used it and the barrel «just lay around for several years and caused no harm to anyone».
In 2021, the young man was looking for odd jobs on the darknet and saw an advertisement: the client promised two thousand dollars for setting fire to a car in Minsk.
At that time, Lysov was traveling and had just arrived in St. Petersburg. When the order was confirmed, he traveled to Belarus by train via Moscow.
Lysov knew about the mass protests of Belarusians in 2020, but he didn't even consider that the order could be related to politics.
«I was too young, foolish. At that moment, I just wanted to earn money, and they told me, 'There's this thing, you need to burn a car in Belarus.' I said: 'Okay, fine.' Now I would never do that. It was just that age,» he recalls.
Upon arriving in Minsk, it turned out that the Toyota Land Cruiser he was ordered to burn was being guarded by some people. Lysov did not refuse the order, but waited for the guards to leave, and on the night of October 1, he doused the car with gasoline and set it on fire. It burned almost completely.
After the arson, Lysov returned to his rented apartment. He was detained 11 hours later.
That same night, Belarusian security forces apprehended 18-year-old Zakhar Tarazevich, who was supposed to photograph the burned car, but was detained on his way to the scene of the fire.
Lysov and Tarazevich did not know each other but became involved in the same criminal case.
The owner of the SUV turned out to be the Chairman of the State Forensic Examination Committee of Belarus, Major General Alyaksei Volkaŭ, who previously served as the first deputy chairman of the Investigative Committee and participated in cases against Siarhei Tsikhanouski and other opposition figures.
By that time, protests in Belarus had been harshly suppressed, their participants were massively fleeing into exile, and the remaining ones were receiving huge sentences. The arson of a high-ranking official's car became a notable news item.
Initially, the young men were charged under an article on terrorism, under which they faced 15 to 25 years in a penal colony.
To the police department, Lysov recalls, he was taken with a bag over his head, and on the way, they beat him, twisted his fingers, and practiced strangulation techniques on the detainee.
«They tortured me — asking who I was, what I was. I said I knew nothing, denied it to the last, said I hadn't set the fire. I thought it would work — but in Belarus, it doesn't work. There is no justice at all there, and I also got caught up in a political mess.
«If I were Belarusian, they probably would have just hanged me in the forest — they told me so when they detained me, that they would just take me to the forest now and that would be it. I replied — well, we all die someday, you know. It all sounds funny now, but back then it wasn't funny at all,» he recounts.
According to Lysov, he was visited in the police department by the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Belarus, Ivan Kubrakov himself.
First, he clarified whether the detainee knew whose car he had set on fire, and whether he recognized his interlocutor. The Russian answered negatively to both questions.
Then Kubrakov approached Lysov, who was sitting on a chair with his hands tied behind his back, and, according to Lysov, «began to press on pressure points» on his face and behind his ears.
«I started making noises, growling. He says: 'Are you growling, you son of a bitch? Good!' After that, he hit my head against the wall and said that if I didn't confess in 20 minutes, they would put me through repeated torture. I didn't say anything, and they took me to the Akrestsina detention center (IZU),» — says Lysov.
From the IZU, he was transferred to Minsk pre-trial detention center SIZA-1. There, he was placed on a special register as prone to extremism, so for the first few months, he wasn't even allowed to inform his grandmother about his detention. The young man spent a year and a half awaiting trial.
Operatives from Chuvashia flew to Minsk to Lysov. During a search of his grandmother's apartment, they found a pistol, and on his computer — the banned «Alphabet of Domestic Terrorism» and «Anarchist Cookbook». In addition, witnesses said that Lysov had gone to a shooting range to fire live weapons, so Russian security forces managed to open a case under the article on training for the purpose of terrorism. However, the case did not proceed — probably because interstate cooperation proved too complex.
Since the political motive in the case of Lysov and Tarazevich could not be proven, the charge was reclassified to an article on property destruction.
On November 2, 2022, Lysov was sentenced to 10 years in a high-security penal colony, and Tarazevich to 7.5 years.
The human rights center «Viasna» recognized both as political prisoners, considering that the sentences and conditions of detention were «disproportionate» to their actions.
Tarazevich is still serving his sentence; he is currently 23 years old.
After the verdict, Lysov submitted an application for extradition to Russia.
Before transfer from Belarus to Russia, the convicted person must undergo a psychiatric examination in a hospital. In the psychiatric hospital, he found himself in the same ward as the artist Ales Pushkin. This acquaintance made a strong impression on the Russian.
«He painted my portrait and promised, if released, to transfer it to canvas. He remained principled to the last, spoke only Belarusian, shouted «Long live Belarus!» at the police, and was beaten for it, but he still didn't break. I respect this person very much; he has a very strong core,» says Lysov. A few months later, Pushkin died in the prison hospital.
In December 2023, Lysov was extradited to Russia. There, under pressure from Russian operatives, he signed a contract with the Ministry of Defense and ended up on the Vovchansk front. He managed to desert from there and flee abroad.
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